Danger in our skies: The number of B.C. float plane deaths mount

Patrick Morrissey, with his daughter Claire, lost his wife and other daughter in a float plane accident. Kerry and six-month-old Sarah were among six who died in the November crash.Ian Smith
/ PNG

Patrick Morrissey and two-year-old daughter Claire leave a funeral service for his wife Dr. Kerry Telford and their six-month-old daughter Sarah Grace. The two perished in a floatplane crash near Saturna Island last week along with four others. The service was held at the Tenth Avenue Alliance Church in Vancouver on Saturday afternoon, December 5, 2009.Jenelle Schneider
/ Vancouver Sun

Patrick Morrissey recalls all the times he flew with his maternity-doctor wife, Kerry, and insisted that she carefully study the doors and handles on the aircraft so they could escape in the event of a crash.

"I know one thing about my wife, she understood," the occupational health and safety expert told The Vancouver Sun. "What I'd review with her, anytime we were on an aircraft, is where's the door, where's the exit, here's how you push it, the handle goes this way. To the point her eyes would roll."

Morrissey wasn't there last Nov. 29 at 4 p.m. when his 41-year-old wife and their six-month-old daughter Sarah were on board a Seair de Havilland float plane that crashed and sank in 14 metres of water in Lyall Harbour off Saturna Island.

Kerry had been attending a staff function for the South Community Birth Program on Saturna Island, he explains. "She was leaving early to get home to see Claire [their other daughter, age three] before she went to bed and didn't take the ferry that everyone else did a little later."

Morrissey is confident that his wife would have oriented herself in the cabin before the flight and would have tried her best to escape when events went horribly wrong.

"I know that she was trying to get out," he says softly, looking into the distance.

What Morrissey knows now is that Kerry managed to remove her seatbelt and the four snaps on the Snugli that held Sarah to her chest.

But, lying on the floor with a severely broken leg, she couldn't escape. "She wouldn't have been able to stand up, especially with the baby in her hand. There was no way...."

Kerry and Sarah were among six passengers who drowned that day because they could not get out of the aircraft. Two of t-he four doors on the de Havil land Beaver aircraft jammed. N-ooneworeapersonalflota tion device. The male pilot and one female passenger escaped.

It was a tragedy that touched hearts across Canada, and has s-tarted to shake up the avia tion industry. It's not just float planes that are affected, but helicopters, too, that operate over and on water, including t-hose involved in risky buck eting operations while fighting forest fires.

A-viation companies are start ing to take it upon themselves to set policy requiring pilots to w-ear life-jackets while work ing on water, as well as to take -egress training so they're bet ter able to escape should their a-ircraft crash on water and per haps flip over.

A few progressive operators a-re even going as far as mak ing life-jackets mandatory for passengers.

D-espite decades of warn ings about such safety issues, Transport Canada has failed to mandate changes, concluding t-he issue is not a high prior ity and there are no broad and easy fixes.

"It's going to come to the p-oint if you're not a safe com pany no one is going to fly with you, regardless of Transport Canada policies," commented Ken Birss, chief pilot with Highland Helicopters Ltd. in Richmond. "Those companies that don't embrace it will be left out in the cold."

Nowhere is the issue greater than in B.C.-- the undisputed f-loat plane capital of Can ada, based on Nav Canada statistics.

The agency responsible for air-traffic control in Canada reports a total of about 132,000 f-loat plane movements (take offs and landings) in 2009 at V-ancouver harbour, Victo r-ia harbour, Vancouver Inter national Airport and Prince Rupert. That represents 97 per c-ent of all float plane move ments at facilities staffed by Nav Canada across the country, but does not include flights at smaller bases up and down the c-oast or, for example, in Ontar io's cottage country.

Transport Canada estimates there are more than 4,000 float planes, both private and commercial, across the nation. Of 214 commercial operators in Canada, 41, or about 20 per cent, are located in B.C.

Just one of those operators, Harbour Air Seaplanes, billed a-s the world's largest all-sea p-lane airline, operates 15 sin gle-turbine de Havilland Otters and six Beaver piston aircraft.

Float plane risks greater

But this story is not really about statistics or even fatal accident rates. It's about the i-nexpensive safety improve ments that could be made to float planes, yet have gone l-argely ignored. And the cer tainty that more people will die in future crashes unless changes are made.

Float planes and helicopters are inherently more dangerous than flying a 747 jet, where the pilot has the benefit of a paved runway, air-traffic control, the latest weather conditions and emergency crews.

Smaller aircraft operating up and down the coast not only l-and on a liquid moving sur face but must rely on their own j-udgment for takeoffs and land ings, often with no immediate hope of help should things turn bad.

"There are more hazards in that environment," confirmed B-ill Yearwood, regional man a-ger of the federal transporta tion safety board in Richmond. "You have to work to bring those hazards under control."

H-e said risks can be miti gated, just as the auto-racing industry has found ways for drivers to walk away from some of the most horrific on-track crashes.

"If we manage those risks well, it will be a safe operation for everyone," he said, a goal that must include education, preparedness and appropriate aircraft safety equipment. "That's what we hope to encourage."

Joel Eilertsen is an industry l-eader who for years has volun tarily adopted safety initiatives on his fleet of five float planes that go well beyond what larger aviation companies have done.

The owner of Air Cab, based at Coal Harbour on northern Vancouver Island, emphasizes these measures need not be costly, suggesting special door handles can cost as little as $50 apiece, and improved life-vests closer to $150.

Y-et Transport Canada con tinues to leave the industry to its own devices, failing to act, despite repeated warnings at both the federal and provincial level.

A-s recently as 2009, the pro v-incial coroner's office deliv ered a report on the MJM Air crash off Quadra Island in 2005 i-n which the pilot and four pas sengers escaped from the Beaver float plane only to drown without life-jackets.

A-mong the 11 recommen dations: pilots be required to complete underwater egress training; passengers wear lifej-ackets equipped with function ing personal locator aids and a requirement for inflatable life-rafts. Another recommendation w-as that planes have water p-roof electronic locator trans mitters or automatically and manually released dye packs, or some other means to help locate a crash site in water.

O-f Transport Canada's con tinuing failure to act, Eilertsen states: "Common sense is not in their program. They're not p-rogressive in making it man datory for people to do things that make sense."

In response to the Saturna crash and TSB concerns, Viking Air Ltd. is working on safety modifications to the Beaver that could be available to the industry in a matter of months. (The Sidney-based company is the "type certificate holder" for the aircraft, having acquired the design from Bombardier in 2006.)

"What else could we do in the interests of improving safety?" V-iking president David Cur tis said of the move applauded by the TSB. "We're trying to be proactive. We're all ears to see what we can do."

Where does the tragic float plane chronology begin? That depends on just how far back you want to go.

Escaped but drowned

I-n 1988, a study by the Cana dian Aviation Safety Board cited eight occurrences in w-hichtheoccupantsexitedair craft but drowned attempting to swim to shore. It found that "occupants sometimes drown while attempting to reach lifejackets stowed in the rear of the cabin or under seats."

Over 15 years ending in 1990, the agency tracked 103 fatal accidents on water in which 168 people died: 67 per cent outright from drowning, 11 per cent from injuries on impact, 10 per cent from drowning due to injuries that prohibited them from escape, and two per cent from exposure. The report recommended, in part: "The Department of Transport require that all occupants of s-eaplanes wear a personal flota tion device during the standing, taxiing, takeoff, and approach and landing phases of flight."

In 2005, the TSB reported on the crash of a Cessna 185 float plane in the Northwest Territories. The plane flipped and two passengers drowned because they were unable to exit. The TSB pointed to the r-isk of drowning that occu pants of float planes face in crashes and the need for safety improvements to allow easier egress. Passengers may also not receive an adequate safety briefing before takeoff.

In Australia, meanwhile, a new draft law under the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations s-tates each occupant of a sea plane, amphibian, or helicopter t-hat is "taking off from or land ing on water must wear a lifejacket equipped with a whistle and a survivor locator light." Implementation could take two years.

For family members of those who have perished, the delays and bureaucracy are heartbreaking.

"-People should just be wear ing their life-jackets," asserts Kirsten Stevens, who lost her 40-year-old husband, David, in the MJM Air crash. "You don't have time to get them out."

Darla MacDonald, who lost her 32-year-old fiance, Fabian Bedard, on the same fight, agrees:

"We need it mandatory that when anyone gets on a float plane they're wearing a lifejacket of some sort."

Over the years, Transport Canada has listened ... but not acted on such suggestions.

The agency conducted a review of float plane safety in August 2005 after the TSB report into the Cessna 185 float plane crash in the Northwest Territories.

T-ransport Canada's air certi fication division issued a report to Martin Eley, then-director of the aircraft certification branch, i-n 2006 on potential solu tions. They included push-out windows, jettisonable doors, emergency exit lighting, egress training, emergency breathing systems, the wearing of lifejackets and guidance to passengers on how to locate and open exit doors.

But Eley officially shelved the s-uggestions in a May 2008 let t-er to Merlin Preuss, then direc tor general of civil aviation.

"In a subsequent discussion you and I agreed that in the absence of a clear way forward, this file would be put on hold in deference to other civil aviation priorities.

"Any further work on this file would need to be evaluated in the context of our current organization and our current priorities."

Eley, who was promoted into Preuss's job in May 2009, explained in a recent interview from Ottawa the "reality is that float planes vary tremendously b-oth in terms of size and tech nology and that there was no readily available solution.

"At that point, on the basis of other priorities, we didn't have the ability to pursue some of the work that needed to be done to find how that would become practical. I was unable to find the resources to get further into that. It wasn't a rejection of the concept. "

Now, largely in response to the Saturna Island crash, Transport Canada is holding a workshop with the industry in the fall in Vancouver to gather opinions and share information on safety measures for float planes, including solutions that are widely available.

Safety briefing fell short

E-ley noted that another con sideration is that any higher standards set by Canada w-ouldhavetobemetbysimi lar aircraft arriving from other nations.

"-We continue to be con cerned about aviation safety," Eley said. "We're not being complacent."

Eley credits initiatives such as passenger safety briefings and a special safety pamphlet on egress-- S-eaplanes: a pas s-enger's guide -- on improv ing passenger safety in recent years.

In stark contrast to Eley's view, The Vancouver Sun found the passenger safety briefing to be wanting on a round-trip flight on a Harbour Air single-engine de Havilland Otter between Richmond and Nanaimo.

Eleven passengers received the following safety briefing from the pilot: "The airplane's got five exits, two doors in the front on both sides, two doors in the back on both sides -- one you just came through. The fifth exit is the emergency hatch. It's on the ceiling, halfway down.

"Underneath all your seats you can feel pouches. They've got inflatable life-vests in all those. And the safety card explaining this is in the folder in the seat pouch ahead of you."

Could you escape from a crashed float plane, especially one flipped over in water, based on that briefing?

No explanation of how to operate the handles on the doors or open the ceiling hatch, no demonstration on how to put on and inflate the life-vest, no caution against inflating i-t inside the aircraft, and cer tainly no instruction on how to create a mental road map on how to exit should you become submerged in water.

The Sun also dropped into the Harbour Air office on the Burrard Inlet waterfront and found no evidence of a safety brochure to explain passenger egress during a plane crash in water. The pamphlet can be viewed on Harbour Air's web-site under aircraft fleet.

"Having it on before you take off, there's actually less risk of you accidentally blowing it up than if you were trying to put i-t on in a panic," asserted Year wood, noting experience shows that passengers hardly ever grab the life vest, much less put it on, in a crash on water.

A Glossary Of Terms

Transport Canada: The federal b-ody responsible for civil avia tion in Canada, with powers to mandate safety improvements for industry.

Na-v Can: The private corpora tion created by Ottawa to oversee air-traffic control at major centres.

Danger in our skies: The number of B.C. float plane deaths mount

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